Sunday, 26 August 2012

The idea of staying away from home began late in my life. Bred within the grand comforts of familiarity where even the hostile dogs on the roads are familiar enemies, a completely new city entail much excitement. So my appreciation for all the hardhips of life that hostel life entails is of much intensity. Along with the sense of liberation that you might feel, where several minutes in a day give you the whoopie feeling, the levels of toleration that one is born with is indeed increased manifold, up to a point when a rat is literally doing bungee jumping above your head, you can relax and continue with your task and let the fellow be.
I've been alloted a hostel that's supposed to be the oldest in my campus. this entails families of rats that have been raised from generation to generations, and therefore have expertise of sniffing their ways into food like a trained hound. it also entails mosquito repellant resistant mosquitoes, some humble termites that recently made a friend of mine look like he's had the pox all over again and some darned dogs that breed like bunnies and proliferate the entire Earth in order to replace human race, someday very soon.
And I am not alone. The jungle here is appealing. There's a joke that if one sees a nilgai in the first week of being in the campus, one is supposed to complete her PhD from here. In all fairness, I wish to run away. But to top it all, I have seen five such so called lucky charms, often in pairs which implies many more unborn nilgais in the making. Strange are the charms of luck. Then there are cats who stare at you, and you can stare back too. It's a game of who bats one's eyelids first. But cats are fine. My balcony also sees - what one of my friends searched in the internet to find out that its called a civet- stealthily climb up. We had a mutual moment of passion where we stared into each others' eyes while it dangled its tail. Then I silently went back, brought a can of baygon and sprayed in all my glory. My revenge was taken, and my uninvited guest has so far decided to run away for good. South Delhi, I conclude, has a lot of animals, human forms included.
But indeed, it's fun. the days end when you wish to, the dead of the night is filled with wide-awake people on the roads, and libraries that are stacked with all sorts of books, YET kind enough to let us humble mortals access Facebook to spy on people's life like good old times when we had only studies to do, and some entertainment and the rest, that were taken for granted thanks to the odd blessings like parents, familiarity and neighbourhood.
Life away from home is supposedly odd. It's everyone's life away from home out here, some more and some less. But, well, with a good friend or two, it's all good after all.

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comments:

I take it that you're living in hostel for the first time in your life?

I remember my hostel days (a year ago though they seem decades away). Each time we moved into our hostels, it was already September and we were welcomed by unholy swarms of crickets and (!) locusts. It was like being back in Biblical Egypt :P

However, I don't understand how stray dogs and cats can trouble you so much. One of my other friends in JNU also complained about the same. (She had the same problem in LSR)

Anyway, glad to see all the regular bloggers back! All the best in your new jungle!